Bolts (left, red) and Peanuts (right, black) are the
International Wolf Center’s new wolf pups. After an online poll, they
will get new names chosen by the public. (Photo by Darcy Berus
International Wolf Center)

One of the International Wolf Center’s two new pups, known
temporarily as Peanut, has survived leg surgery and evacuation from her
first forest fire.
Now officials at the Wolf Center in Ely want the public to help name her and the other new member of its pack.

Peanut
and a male pup temporarily named Bolts arrived at the wolf center near
Ely in April, spokesman Tom Myrick said Friday. They’ll be integrated
into the center’s “ambassador” pack of five wolves.
First,
their names will be selected in an online poll that began at noon Friday
and will continue through May 31. Anyone can vote at www.wolf.org.

Friends
of the Wolf Center submitted more than 1,500 possible names during the
first two weeks of May. Wolf Center personnel winnowed that down to four
nominees for each pup.
For the male:

Boden (Boh-Den) — Scandinavian/Old French for “shelter/herald; one who brings news.”

Boltz — He recognizes the current name “Bolts” when it’s used by staff.
It’s “a nickname for a pup that has a quick step around the enclosure.”

Nodin (Noh-Din) — An American Indian word for “wind.”

Orion (oh-RYE-on) — In Greek mythology, Orion was a mighty hunter.For the female:

Luna (Loo-Nah) — Latin for “moon.”

Kanene (Kah-NAY-Nay or Kah-Neen) — An African word for “a little thing
in the eye is big” or “little things that are important.”

Aysha — An English name meaning “lively.”

Spirit — “The attitude and tenacity she has shown despite her medical issues.”The
latter refers to a medical condition that surfaced in the female soon
after she arrived. An initial exam at the Ely Veterinary Clinic revealed
a potential problem in her right hip, and the pup was referred to the
University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Center for an in-depth
examination. That occurred Wednesday, and after examining her,
veterinary surgeons successfully attached a plate to the pup’s right
rear femur in an hourlong surgery.

In a news release, Wolf Center curator Lori Schmidt said the wolf’s underlying condition was a mystery.

“It
could be metabolic, or it could be a Vitamin D deficiency,” she said.
“In other words, it could be something we can address or it might be a
chronic condition that we cannot do anything about.”

In the wild, such a condition could well be fatal, Myrick said.The pup was barely back in Ely when the Wolf Center was affected by the wildfire that threatened Ely on Thursday.

The
center was closed to the public, and the pups were evacuated in kennels
to a safe location, Myrick said. Preparations also were made to
evacuate the five adult wolves, he said, but that never became
necessary. The fire never reached the wolf center, and it was reopened
for business on Friday.Wolf pups are added to the pack every four
years, Myrick said.

They come from various USDA-approved breeding
facilities, which the wolf center declines to name. Naming new pups is a
tradition that goes back at least two decades.“We are an
educational organization and our mission is to educate the world about
wolves,” Myrick said. “In order to fulfill that mission we really have
to engage the public in every conceivable way that we can. And this is
one fantastic way to engage everybody from kids to seniors.”The center’s website draws hits from throughout the world, Myrick said.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone